PreventionWeb turns five

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction today marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of PreventionWeb which is now used by 55,000 unique visitors every month as a common platform for disaster risk reduction professionals to find and share information and collaborate on disaster risk reduction issues. “Our initial goal was to help people make sense of the disaster risk reduction domain. Our current goal is to help them to act on it,” says Craig Duncan, Senior Coordinator of the Information Management Unit.

PreventionWeb began life after an intensive user needs assessment was undertaken in 2007 targeting national focal points from Botswana, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Senegal, United States of America, Algeria, and in addition to practitioners representing the needs of twelve diverse organizations in twelve countries. The website is updated daily and has published over 20,000 disaster risk reduction items from policy and legislation, country progress reports, publications, DRR maps and risk profiles, disaster data and statistics, to news, events, educational materials, networks and more.